"Well! Guess I'm rating big visitors tonight!" He gave the man's hand a jaunty shake.

"You're taking a big trip," said the Secretary. "Tell me, Mr. Johnson—how does it feel to be the first man to go to the Moon?"

"Can't say. I haven't been there yet."

"You'd better get aboard," said the General. "Everything's been checked down. You'll have half an hour to make your own checks from inside. How's your weight?"

"Down to 128."

"Fine. That's better than we'd hoped. But don't be afraid to holler if something doesn't look right—" He extended his hand, gripped Scotty's tightly. "Good luck, lad. We're with you all the way."

A soldier rode up the gantry with him, high up past the break-lines of the first and second stages, to the small open port in the final stage of the rocket. Scotty could feel the eyes on him from below as he climbed into the port—one lone man to jockey the first manned ship to the Moon. A big job, a job that really took guts. He grinned, and slid through into the passenger chamber. Carefully he reached back and slammed the port shut behind him with a farewell wave to the soldier, and gave the lock-wheel a spin, until he heard the seal click. Then he slipped down into the half-sitting, half-reclining couch which nearly filled the tiny chamber. His heart was pounding in his throat as he snapped on the radio phone. "Okay, I'm in," he said.

"Got her locked up?" Mitch's voice grated in his earphones.

"Ay, ay."

"Give her a careful check inside there. Then stand by."

Scotty nodded and checked the banks of instruments on the tiny panel before him. He was the payload on this trip; the ship was little more than an upholstered tube, with him jammed tight in one end and enough fuel to land him on the Moon and shoot him off again in behind him. The other sections, far huger than this little pellet with him in the middle, would drive him out, break the frightful hold that Earth held on her subjects. But there was nothing superfluous here, nothing he did not actually need, and he checked quickly. Then he leaned back and flipped on the forward televiewer....

The vast black expanse of space, peppered with a thousand bright pinpoints of light, suddenly appeared on the screen inches from his face. It took him 

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